Thursday, February 05, 2009

Remember last week I blogged about switching my office and bedroom around? I left off with a loveseat in my Jimmy waiting to be unloaded when two of my college kids got home.

They arrived home—naturally thrilled to be moving more furniture—and we headed out front where I’d backed the Jimmy and set about unloading the loveseat. Or so I thought.

Let me backtrack a bit. That same day an older gentleman and I had loaded the loveseat with relatively little difficulty so I figured three of us could easily slide it back out.

You can probably guess what happened next.

Does the word ‘wedged’ conjure up any pictures? Yep. That’s right. The THREE of us got the loveseat hopelessly wedged in the back of my Jimmy. It wouldn’t budge. Even worse, it was stuck in such a position that it was hanging over the tailgate of the Jimmy and I couldn’t close the back door and that meant the interior light remained on. Did I mention the temperature outdoors was hovering around 10 degrees with a windchill of negative 20 at the time and my brother (my go-to-guy in situations like this) wasn’t off for another hour? I had to keep my vehicle running in order to keep the battery from running down.

Some time later my brother arrives and accurately assesses the situation: Little Sis has done it again.

We go to work on the stubborn sofa-ette. We unscrew the legs, figuring it will facilitate the extraction process, only to discover one of the legs is missing. Now I know for a fact it had four legs when it went into the Jimmy, so I reckon it’s come off somehow in the push/pull process. We continue. My Jimmy has (or maybe I should say ‘had’) one of those black screens that is attached to one side of the vehicle that you can pull across and fasten to the other to cover items stored in the back of the vehicle. The loveseat not only got hung up on the rod that makes up that device, but the rod actually impaled itself into the wood beneath the loveseat and began to rip away the black screen canvas material attached to the handy rod. We had to shove the loveseat back into the Jimmy to remove the rod mechanism. This was not a quick, easy procedure. Once we finally separated the canvas curtain rod thingy from the loveseat, we managed to slide the loveseat (which seemed much heavier coming out of the Jimmy than it did going in) out and carried it in the front door.

“Well, yes, but you see…” I then explained my activities of the previous weekend.

“So we have to move another loveseat out of the TV room before we move this in?” he summarized, the look on his face similar to mine when I realized the loveseat was hopelessly wedged in the back of my vehicle.

“You’re quick,” I said, feeling praise was in order.

He lifted a dubious eyebrow.

Once the old loveseat was safely moved to my office and we’d moved the ‘new’ one into place, it was time to put the legs back on.

Remember that missing leg?

The one that was on when we slid the loveseat in the Jimmy and, thus, logic demanded it must be somewhere in the Jimmy or around the Jimmy. Yeah, that leg.

Well, I searched that vehicle high and low, in and out, up and down, took everything out of it twice and guess what? No leg. Not anywhere.

Okay. Think, Kathy, think. Where could it be?

I called the place I purchased the furniture item, explained, told them what door I’d backed up to when we’d loaded the item. The guy (who happened to be the same one who helped me load the loveseat and—shocker here—remembered me) promised he’d check personally and call me back. He did.

No leg.

Okay. I’ve got a like new loveseat that matches my southwestern-theme room, but I’ve only got three legs. I started visiting local places: Walmart, Farm and Home, True Value, Coast Hardware. Zero legs. I call a carpet and furniture place just down the street to see what they suggest. The guy asked me the brand of loveseat. I have no clue. It’s big and comfortable and goes with my southwestern motif, I tell the guy. I hear his sigh through the phone line. I explain I have the leg . I describe it to him.

He responds he has two ‘junk’ legs I can look at. So I run down, leg in hand, and hope in my heart and what do you know? Much to my amazement, one of the legs is an identical match! I give him a five dollar bill for his time, hurry home, screw the legs on the loveseat before one of them disappears, and collapse onto the cursed loveseat.

Who knew a simple room rearrangement could go so wrong?

Martha Stewart I ain’t.

Next week’s installment of Murphy’s Law moments from the Heartland will feature the surreal scenario when a daft, clueless driver pulls out from a grocery store driveway, sideswipes my son’s car, shoving him into the curb, wails “why did you hit me?” and her equally demented husband arrives on the scene only to go postal on my son, escalates on yours truly, and continues his tirade with law enforcement.

Now that you have paid $5 for a replacement leg, Murphy's Law dictates the missing one will turn up when you least expect it. Or you'll walk out the door one day when the snow finally melts and it will be right there in front of you.

Thanks for the great story. Hopefully, you are getting a little sun to enjoy in your office after all the trials and tribulations of getting it all in order.

I'm glad to hear I'm not alone with having the week from hell. You can tell the full moon is next Monday.

I stared this week with my home pc crashing, then my car died because of the freezing temps and I've had to walk miles in those same freezing temps to get to work. And to make it all the more fun, I dislocated a rib and can hardly move without pain.

I'm glad to hear that things are starting to look up for you. It gives me hope that things will change here as well.

Hugs on your week from hell, Refhater. My son-the same one who got his car crunched by the clueless woman with the insane husband--also developed problems with the LCD on his brand new HP laptop monitor and has to return it. It has developed weird 'ghost' images on the monitor display. Very weird. He is a bit apprehensive at present as these things are known to happen in threes. Scaree!

Hope you get your vehicle up and r unning and things improve for you in the days to come.

Yeah, I've seen this kind of behavior before, Bookmobiler, but my son sure had his eyes opened. It was a lesson in Knuckledragging 101 that's for sure. Thanks for extending best wishes to Erick. I'll pass them on to him.

Thanks for the hugs. Weeks like this just make you treasure the good things that happen when they happen. It's my belief that at least one good thing happens every day, sometimes you just have to make that good thing up. (ex. You didn't drop your tooth brush in the toilet this morning.)

This week hasn't been a total loss. The people who fixed my computer didn't charge me for fixing it. My little brother celebrated his 30th birthday healthy and happy. All the exercise from having to walk to work will show up on the weight loss scale eventually. And my mom is recovering well from her recent surgery. She got medical clearance to drive today.

Tell your son that bad things may happen in 3s, but so do the good things. And as my mom always says; "It could be worse."

I like your 'cup half full' approach to adversity, Refhater. We forget all the things we have to be grateful for each and every day. I know I'm often guilty of this. Thanks for the reminder that each day brings us gifts, even though we might not even be aware of it at the time.

The Crime

The authors of this blog are hereby charged with writing Killer Fiction novels responsible for spontaneous outbursts of laughter in public places, uncontrollable swooning over larger-than-life heroes, and the deaths of countless fictional villains.

The Evidence

Our Accomplices

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